Shark Finning: Watch this and 'Bite Back'

Posted on January 15th 2013

SHARK finning is sickening. We know that. But I challenge anyone to watch this horrific video and not be compelled to 'bite back' against the industry that is plundering the oceans and mutilating beautiful animals for a tasteless dish of soup.

Released by marine conservation charity Bite-Back today (October 31st), the campaign advert is more gruesome and frightening than any other Halloween horror you will come across.

Sadly, the featured images of sharks being finned while still alive was deemed "too graphic" for TV audiences and it was given an 18-certificate, preventing it from being seen by a mass audience.

But it deserves to be seen. If this 45-second black and white video doesn't break your heart and encourage you to take action, nothing will.

The commercial was designed to expose the gory truth of the "barbaric practice that contributes to the death of more than 36 million sharks every year", said Bite-Back.

It shows fishermen slicing the fins off living sharks that have been hauled from the water before then callously dumping the dying animals overboard. Unable to swim, the sharks endure a slow and agonising death on the sea floor.

The sickening practice has exploded in recent years to feed the burgeoning market for shark fin soup which is seen as a delicacy and sign of wealth in some cultures.

However, the removal of the top apex predators threatens the very future of the ocean and man's relationship with it.

Sharks are crucial to marine ecosystems, maintaining a balance in populations of prey species and keeping the ocean healthy by removing ill or diseased animals. - if too many are removed then the whole marine food web could collapse.

Bite-Back Campaign director, Graham Buckingham, said: “Maybe this is the scariest thing anyone will see this Halloween but, the world needs to be aware of this atrocity to the underwater world.”

Watch the video. Be shocked. Share it with your friends, it's time they understood the true horror of shark finning. Then take action. Join Bite-Back's campaign to end the sale of shark fin soup in the UK. For more on the story, read on.